Broken Borders

Spero

Laura Janeth Garza, 38, was indicted last week in Harris County, Texas, on two counts of illegal voting. Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday that his office will prosecute Garza, who is a Mexican national. Houston is located in Harris County.

The Texas attorney general’s office alleges that Garza (a.k.a. Angie Yadira Zamora) illegally registered to vote in Harris County after stealing the identity of a U.S. citizen. Garza was found out by authorities when the victim of the identity theft applied for a U.S. passport and discovered that one had been issued in her name to another person.

According to Paxton’s office, Garza voted in 2004, 2012 and 2016. Garza stands charged with ineligible voting and voter impersonation in the November 2016 election. Under federal law, she could be deported for either charge. On Monday, Garza was being held at the Montgomery County jail with bail set at $150,000. Garza could get 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.

The Finer Things

Scotchwhisky.com

Two rare bottles of Macallan 1926 single malt whisky have set a new world record after they were sold by Dubai Airport retailer Le Clos for US$1.2m.

The bottles, with labels designed by artists Sir Peter Blake and Valerio Adami, were bought by an international businessman for his private collection for US$600,000 each, setting a new record for the most expensive pair of whisky bottles sold.

The spirit was distilled at Macallan in 1926 and matured for 60 years in ex-Sherry casks before being bottled and released in 1986.

Of the 40 bottles produced, Sir Peter Blake – the pop artist famed for designing the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover for The Beatles – and Italian graphic artist Valerio Adami designed the labels for 12 bottles each.

These were originally offered as corporate gifts to Macallan’s most valued customers, but have since become some of the most sought-after bottles by whisky collectors.

‘These represent some of the most exclusive bottles ever produced, making this an iconic sale that will be remembered worldwide for years to come,’ said Geoff Kirk, Macallan’s director of prestige.

‘It is incredibly rare for The Macallan 1926 to be made available for purchase, and the sale offers whisky connoisseurs the chance to secure historic bottles emblematic of 20th-century pop culture.’

The Digital Age

FP

Facebook has banned Frontpage Editor and Glazov Gang host Jamie Glazov for seven days. Jamie's crime is posting/reporting on his Facebook page a physical threat that was made to him personally on his FB page by a member of the Religion of Peace.

On Saturday, April 14, 2018, a certain Muhammad Irfan Ayoub started commenting on Jamie's page, rebuking him for daring to bring attention to the persecution of women and girls under Sharia and telling Jamie to convert to Islam. As the exchange ensued over various aspects of Islam, and as Jamie made clear he did not want to convert, Ayoub made it evident that there would be punishment and that "Allah will defeat you." Jamie inquired how this punishment from Allah was synonymous with Islam being a Religion of Peace -- which Ayoub contested Islam to be. Read more ..

The Edge of Health

Spero

In 2017, reported cases of deadly tuberculosis rose by an unexpected 10 percent in New York City. According to the city’s health department, it was the biggest increase since 1992. While tuberculosis is usually associated with the lungs, it can also infect and invade the brain, bones, kidneys, spine, and other organs. The contagious disease, if left untreated, can be deadly. In 2017, the

While there were 556 cases reported in 2016, that number jumped to 613 in 2017, according to the Health Department. Tuberculosis reached a peak of 3,811 in 1992. No explanation was offered by health authorities in a notice to medical professionals on Monday.

At high risk for tuberculosis are HIV-positive people, patients with compromised immune systems, and substance abusers.

Venezuela on Edge

Spero

In Venezuela, where the South American nation’s economy continues to implode under its socialist government, a video of children and adults scrambling to grab food scraps and refuse showed scenes of hunger and desperation. The video, according to Venezuelan journalist Luis Olavarrieta, was recorded in El Cementerio neighborhood in Aricagua, a town in Portuguesa State of northwestern Venezuela. Adults and children grapple with each other in the video, grabbing what appear to be bunches of rotten bananas and plantains that were dumped in the street by a vendor.

According to Olavarrieta, every day it is more common to see Venezuelans going to garbage dumps to satisfy their growing hunger. Read more ..

Jewry on Edge

communicated

The Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police have unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing the U.S. State Department's definition of anti-Semitism when investigating crimes. This important resolution follows the Village of Bal Harbour, Florida - a municipality within the county - becoming the first government body in the country to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism into their laws, for which the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) had testified in its support. LDB is a national, non-profit civil rights organization committed to combating anti-Semitism.

"The Miami-Dade Police Chiefs' resolution marks an important 'next step' following Bal Harbour's adoption of the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism in in December. These steps taken in Florida should serve as a model for community leaders throughout the country who seek to curb the current resurgence of anti-Semitism," stated LDB's COO & Director of Policy, Alyza Lewin.

South Africa on Edge

The South African parliament voted to seize lands owned by whites without compensation. A motion for “expropriation without compensation” passed by a landslide in the legislature, having been brought to the fore by leftist Julius Malema who said that white farmers are “criminals.” Following the vote on Tuesday, South Africa’s constitution will probably be amended to allow the confiscation without compensation. Passing by 241 votes in favor, 83 members of the parliament voted against the measure. The matter has been referred to the parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee, which must report back by August 30.

The proposal is now central plank in the platform of the ruling party and the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was appointed to the post after the resignation of scandal-plagued former president Jacob Zuma. Read more ..

Vote 2018

Spero

The Supreme Court heard on Tuesday a high-profile First Amendment case involving a Minnesota voter who was expelled from a polling site for wearing a T-shirt displaying the words “Don’t Tread on Me” and pin with the words “Please I.D. Me.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that assists clients in defending their rights before government intrusion, claims that the Minnesota state law that prohibits voters from wearing “political” apparel at polling places is unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment. The law applies to any t-shirt, button, or other item that identifies any political issue and even any organization that is known to take positions on political issues. According to the PLF website, “Voters who wear AFL-CIO or NRA caps are told they must remove them before they can enter the polling place and vote. If they refuse, election officials take their names for possible prosecution and penalties up to $5,000. Lower courts upheld this law on the theory that government can ban all expression, besides voting, at a polling place.”

Election 2018

Spero

According to a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, more than 100,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in Pennsylvania alone. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a nonpartisan advocacy group which has identified similar noncitizen voting in New Jersey and Virginia, submitted testimony that officials in Pennsylvania have admitted that non-U.S. citizens have been registering and voting in the state “for decades.” The lawsuit was filed in Harrisburg on Monday.

Pennsylvania state officials have shut down requests from PILF for information that could shed further light on the problem and offer means to a solution. “For months, Pennsylvania bureaucrats have concealed facts about noncitizens registering and voting — that ends today,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said.

Adams claims that the state has admitted to a “glitch” that dates to the 1990s that had allowed non-Americans to have an opportunity to register to vote when applying to renew their driver’s licenses, PILF is seeking to know what is the magnitude of the problem. Pennsylvania officials have not yet responded to the lawsuit, nor to the claim of 100,000 non-citizen voters.

Borken Borders

Spero

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers and special agents arrested 212 individuals for violating federal immigration laws and served 122 notices of inspection (NOIs) to businesses in the Los Angeles area of responsibility (AOR) during a five-day targeted operation that ended on Thursday. Eighty-eight percent of those arrested were convicted criminals.

“Because sanctuary jurisdictions like Los Angeles prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of a jail, our officers are forced to conduct at-large arrests in the community, putting officers, the general public and the aliens at greater risk and increasing the incidents of collateral arrests,” said ICE Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan, according to a release. “Fewer jail arrests mean more arrests on the street, and that also requires more resources, which is why we are forced to send additional resources to those areas to meet operational needs and officer safety. Consistent with our public safety mission, 88 percent of those arrested during this operation were convicted criminals.”

Significant Lives

NYT

Sam Bloch, who fled the Nazi occupation of his Polish hometown with his mother and brother, joined the Jewish resistance that fought Germans in Belarus, and later helped organize large public assemblages of Jewish Holocaust survivors, died on Feb. 4 at his home in the Rego Park section of Queens. He was 93.

His son-in-law Menachem Rosensaft said the cause was heart failure.

To Mr. Bloch, an executive at the World Zionist Organization in Manhattan for 50 years, the gatherings offered mass witness to the horrors of Nazism and evidence that survivors had reclaimed their lives out of what he called “the kingdom of death.” When nearly 6,000 survivors from two dozen countries met in Jerusalem in 1981 — the first major gathering Mr. Bloch was involved in — he told the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that those who died in crematories, were buried in mass graves and fought in ghettos would not be forgotten.

The Trump Era

Spero

On Thursday, Newt Gingrich claimed that establishment media outlets are concealing texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, while he argues that the anti-Trump messages in them are getting worse. In 2016 and into the first months of the Trump administration, Page and Strzok -- who were reportedly engaged in an extramarital affair -- exchanged in excess of 50,000 texts that revealed their abhorrence of Trump and his presidency.

On Election Day 2016, for instance, Page wrote to Strzok, "OMG THIS IS F***ING TERRIFYING." In reply, Strzok wrote: "Omg, I am so depressed." A week later, Page wrote, "I bought All the President's Men. Figure I need to brush up on Watergate." On November 14, 2016, she wrote, “God, being here makes me angry. Lots of high fallutin’ national security talk. Meanwhile we have OUR task ahead of us.”

The Obama Era

JNS

The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it has settled its final lawsuit with a pro-Israel group that was targeted by the Internal Revenue Service during the Obama administration.

The settlement on Thursday was with a pro-Israel nonprofit called Z Street, founded by Lori Lowenthal Marcus in 2009. In its lawsuit, Z Street contended that it had been unfairly targeted by the IRS due to its support for Israel, and in particular its alleged support for Jewish activity over the pre-1967 “Green Line.”

“Tax exemption eligibility should be based on whether an organization’s activities fulfill requirements of the law, not a group’s policy positions or the name chosen to reflect those views,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman said in a statement. Read more ..

The Edge of AntiSemitism

INN

The first hijab-wearing model to appear in a L’Oreal haircare campaign pulled out from the campaign on Monday after a series of anti-Israel tweets she posted several years ago were exposed.

The model, Amena Khan, made the posts, including one that described Israel as an “illegal state” and another referring to the country as a “child murderer” in 2014, but they were unearthed when she recently shot to fame, reported The Telegraph.

The tweets have now been deleted. In one post she wrote, “U repeatedly say “nobody is above the law”. Well, under international law, Israel is an illegal state. Yet u support them. EXPLAIN #AskDavid’.”

Another said: “Israel = Pharoah. Both are child murderers. Insha’Allah, defeat also awaits the former; it’s only a matter of time. #HopeForGaza #SaveGaza”.

In a third post directed at Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow, she wrote: “Your ‘children of Gaza’ piece was incredibly moving. Israel is a sinister state & the one who suffer most are innocent children.” Read more ..

Broken Borders

Spero

Sheriffs in Florida bound themselves to an agreement with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to hold illegal immigrants wanted for deportation. The deal known as the Basic Ordering Agreement was reached by 17 Florida sheriffs and ICE, and will allow local law enforcement to hold wanted illegal immigrants for longer periods of time and beyond the time they normally would have to be released based on state or local cases.

ICE wants local authorities to keep illegal immigrants incarcerated for at least 48 hours beyond their normal release time, which would give ICE officers an opportunity to pick them up. While some judges have ruled that holding people beyond their regular release times violates the U.S. Constitution, the agreement reached by ICE and the Florida sheriffs may be a work-around because it is the model that local authorities use when holding wanted persons for the U.S. Marshals Service. Under the new agreement, the sheriffs’ departments become service providers to the federal government and in effect deputizing them. ICE agrees to pay the sheriff departments for holding wanted persons for up to 48 hours, thus responding to judges’ concerns.

Campus on Edge

Jewish Voice

The president of City University of New York’s John Jay College announced they will no longer solicit donations or accept any help from the Koch Brothers, after activist faculty have decried the Koch brother’s politically conservative and libertarian advocacy.

20 activist faculty at John Jay formed a group called “Koch Concerns Coalition”, the NY Post reported.

John Jay University had maintained a positive. relationship with the Koch Brothers in the past. In 2016 a university donation pamphlet listed both the Charles Koch Foundation, as giving between $50,000 and $100,000, in addition to the nonprofit Charles Koch Institute, listed as contributing between $10,000 and $25,000. Mark Holden, the Koch Industries general counsel called the president of John Jay university Karol Mason “his friend”, at the “Smart on Crime” conference held at John Jay Hall a few years ago.

The Digital Age

Spero

According to a Project Veritas investigation, Pranay Singh of social-media platform Twitter admitted to banning mass numbers of Twitter accounts that show an interest in guns, God, and America. Singh, who serves as a direct-messaging engineer for Twitter, said on video: “Just go to a random [Trump] tweet and just look at the followers. They’ll all be like, guns, God, ‘Merica, and with the American flag and the cross,” declared Singh, who was secretly recorded by Project Veritas reporters. “Like, who says that? Who talks like that? It’s for sure a bot.”

When the Project Veritas investigator asked Singh whether it is possible to eliminate accounts, Singh answered, “Yeah. You just delete them, but, like, the problem is there are hundreds of thousands of them, so you’ve got to, like, write algorithms that do it for you.”

Broken Borders

Spero

Acting Director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan, told Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel that politicians who lead so-called sancutary cities should be charged with crimes. Among those cities are Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Homan called on the Department of Justice to file charges against municipal government leaders who have policies that hinder federal immigration agencies. He said that these cities should be cut off from federal funding of law enforcement activities.

Moreover, Homan said that sanctuary politicians should be held "personally accountable" for crimes committed by illegal aliens. Homan said, "We've got to start charging some of these politicians with crimes."

America on Edge

Spero

The city of Baltimore saw a surge of homicides that brought the total to 343 in 2017, thereby setting a new per-capita homicide record of approximately 56 killings per 100,000 people. Baltimore has 615,000 residents after decades of depopulation. Mayor Catherine Pugh told The Associated Press during the last days in December, “Not only is it disheartening, it's painful."

The causes of the violence appear to be manifold. Experts attribute the murder spike to incidence of illegal firearms, opioid addiction, racism, unequal justice, and economic contraction. Some analysts blame the hands-off approach allegedly take up by local police in poor neighborhoods following the death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody in 2015 triggered protests and the worst riots in decades. All six officers involved in Gray’s death were cleared and returned to the police force.

After the Caliphate

Associated Press

For nearly 2½ miles along the western bank of the Tigris River, hardly a single building is intact. The warren of narrow streets of Mosul’s Old City is a crumpled landscape of broken concrete and metal. Every acre is weighed down by more than 3,000 tons of rubble, much of it laced with explosives and unexploded ordnance.

It will take years to haul away the wreckage, and this is just one corner of the destruction. The Iraqi military and U.S.-led coalition succeeded in uprooting the Islamic State group across the country, but the cost of victory is nearly incalculable.

Three years of war devastated much of northern and western Iraq. Baghdad estimates $100 billion is needed nationwide to rebuild. Local leaders in Mosul, the biggest city held by ISIS, say that amount is needed to rehabilitate their city alone.

Catholics on Edge

Spero

According to an account by Vatican authorities, in 2017 there were 23 Catholic missionaries and pastoral care workers were killed worldwide. Among them were 13 priests, one religious brother, one religious sister, and eight lay persons. For the eighth consecutive year, the place most affected, with an extremely elevated number of pastoral care workers killed is in the Americas, where eight priests, one religious brother, and two lay people were killed. In Africa, 10 pastoral care workers were killed (4 priests, 1 religious sister, 5 lay people), while in Asia, one priest and one lay pastoral worker were killed.

In January, the body of Father Joaquin Hernandez Sifuentes was found in northern Mexico. He was the victim of home invasion, abduction, and murder.

Between, 2000 and 2016, there were 424 pastoral care workers and religious killed, including five bishops. The majority of the pastoral care workers were killed in robberies and violent attacks. Read more ..

Jerusalem as Capitol

al Jazeera and agencies

The Israeli embassy in Cairo has expressed gratitude for an Egyptian writer's controversial remarks about the status of Jerusalem.

The embassy was referring to an interview that was broadcast on Sunday, in which Youssef Ziedan, an Egyptian novelist and scholar, said that the al-Aqsa mosque is not located in Jerusalem's al-Haram al-Sharif compound and that Jerusalem is not a holy city.

In a local televised appearance, Ziedan also laid blame on Arab and Israeli leaders, accusing them of repeatedly exploiting Jerusalem as a battleground that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

In response, the embassy said on Tuesday in a statement posted on its Facebook page: "We are pleased to hear the words of writer and historian Youssef Ziedan and his description of the deep-rooted relationship between Jews and Muslims that existed even before Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him."

European Anti-Semitism

Cutting Edge contributor

Often when news emerges about Islamic supremacist abuses — particularly when associated with Muslim migration — it is diminished and even trivialized in the media by means of “Islamophobia” propaganda or largely trumped-up concerns about “right-wing nationalism.”

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reported that Jews in the German city of Bochum “announced that they will no longer wear kippot because of attacks on them by Muslim youths.” The Sunday Times also wrote that Muslim migrants were behind the rise in anti-Semitism all across Europe. Surprisingly, the Huffington Post also reported that Muslim migrants “streaming into Europe from the Middle East are bringing with them virulent anti-Semitism which is erupting from Scandinavia to France to Germany.” Read more ..

War Against the Weak

Spero

Sitting on the desk of Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is a bill that when passed into law would ban abortions on unborn babies found with Down syndrome. The Ohio legislature voted 20-12 for the ban prohibiting abortionists from committing an abortion that is sought “in whole or in part” on the basis of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Abortionists who refuse to comply would lose their medical license and face a fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to a $5,000 fine and 18 months in prison. However, the law does not punish women seeking abortions.

Praising the measure, Ohio Right to Life called it a step toward ending discrimination against the disabled. "Both the House and the Senate sent a loud message that we are a society built on compassion, love, equality,” said president Mike Gonidakis. “We expect Governor Kasich will sign this legislation, as he said he would in 2015. Every Ohioan deserves the right to life, no matter how many chromosomes they have.”

About 67 percent of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States, thus reducing overall births of children with Down syndrome 30 percent.

The Race to AI

EE Times

Google's (Mountain View, CA) AlphaZero artificial intelligence (AI) program has achieved within 24 hours a "superhuman level" of play in the game of chess within hours of teaching itself the game from scratch, knowing only the game rules.

The algorithm was tested against Stockfish 8 , an open source computer chess engine considered to be among the strongest available. In a paper on the research, Google's DeepMind division reported that in 100 games played against Stockfish 8, AlphaZero won or drew all of them.

The AlphaZero algorithm is a generalized version of Google's AlphaGo Zero, which itself was an evolution of AlphaGo - the first computer program to defeat a world champion at the ancient Chinese game of Go. The original AlphaGo trained on thousands of human amateur and professional games to learn how to play Go, while AlphaGo Zero was able to teach itself to play Go from scratch, starting from completely random play.

Understanding Autism

Israel 21c

Thirty years ago, a leading autism expert at UCLA diagnosed Raphael (Raffi) Rembrand’s four-year-old son – too late, at that point, for critical early-intervention therapies.

Three decades later, the Israeli father is fulfilling his dream of offering a simple noninvasive way to screen newborns for signs of autism, which is diagnosed in some three million children every year.

“One out of every 45 newborns this year will be diagnosed later in life with autism. The problem is that diagnosis is too late and based on behavior observations. SensPD is going to change all of that,” vows Rembrand, founder and CTO of a one-man startup based in the northern Israeli Arab village of Bosmat Tab’un.

The SensPD diagnostic process, now ready for clinical trials, uses the same instrument currently used in newborn nurseries and well-baby clinics to test infants’ hearing by measuring otoacoustic emissions (OAE). Rembrand’s novelty is using OAE measurement as an indicator of the baby’s overall sensory perception. Read more ..

Race Hatred in America

Spero

An article titled “Your DNA is an abomination” that appeared in the student newspaper of Texas State University has been denounced as showing blatant racism. Rudy Martinez wrote in the article in The University Star that among his peers, lovers, professors, police officers, and others, he has met only twelve white people he has met that he considers to be “decent.” He continues in the article by denouncing “white privilege” and that white people do not have to worry when pulled over by police. “I see white people as an aberration,” Martinez wrote.

While some readers understood him to mean that he does not like white people, Martinez claims that he is adhering to an ideology. “The idea of whiteness and the way we currently understand it in which you have white privilege, you have our system of mass incarceration, you have a history of slavery in this country followed by Jim Crow. Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. These are all ideas born out of whiteness; they were born out of the minds of white people. So that, I do see as an aberration,” Martinez told KXAN News later. Read more ..

Jew Hatred

NYT bestselling author

Ellen Koontz, a Kansas contract schoolteacher, is asking a federal judge to re-affirm the anti-Jewish boycott campaign begun by Adolf Hitler on April 1, 1933, openly adopted shortly thereafter by the Mufti of Jerusalem as part of the Arab-Nazi alliance during the Holocaust, internationalized against the Jewish State after WWII by the Arab League in December 1945, made illegal in America by a 1976 amendment to the Tax Reform Act and a 1977 amendment to the US Export Administration Act, which governs commercial activity impacting foreign policy, reaffirmed by continuous Presidential Executive Orders, and re-labelled in recent years with glitter and violent disruption as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, otherwise known as BDS. Read more ..

Inside Amazon

CNBC

Using the company's marketplace, the 31-year-old entrepreneur built revenues in his skin care business to more than $10 million annually in seven years, thanks in large part to having the most popular facial steamer on Amazon.com.

But rather than gearing up for Cyber Monday and a potential blockbuster holiday season, Damavandi's Los Angeles-based company, Pure Daily Care, is in crisis. For the bulk of 2017, he says he's been under assault by a rival brand named Krasr, which he says ripped off his top product, spoofed his email address and tricked customers into posting a barrage of negative reviews.

Christianity on Edge

Spero

Coptic Christians in Egypt refuse to submit to Muslim demands limiting the expression of their faith. The continue to build churches and even promote television networks to spread the Christian message. Christians have been targeted by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State in bombings of churches, rape and abduction of women, forced conversions, arson, and murder.

The Wafa Media Foundation, which is associated with the Islamic State (ISIS) has recently called on Muslims to carry out renewed violence against Egypt's Christians, who have been present in the country since the first millenium. In 2017 alone, Muslim terrorists have carried out three massacres of Christians ina addition to targeted assassinations. On April 9, Palm Sunday, for instance, attacks were carried out on Coptic churches in the Tanta region and in the city of Alexandria. The attacked reaped 45 deaths and more than 130 wounded. On May 26, a terrorist assault on a busload of pilgrims in the Myrna Governate caused the death of 28 Coptic Christians. And on October 13, a young Muslim stabbed to death a Coptic Christian priest, Father Samaan Shehata, in Cairo.

Politics on Edge

Spero

Kayla Moore, the wife of the Republican candidate for the United States Senate Roy Moore, vowed on social media on Monday that they will soon release evidence that several accusers were paid to speak out against him.

Also on Monday, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred conducted a press conference with Beverly Young Nelson at her side. Nelson has accused Roy Moore of attempting to rape her more than 30 years ago. Allred has represented various other women in the past who had lain accusations of sexual improprieties allegedly committed by other prominent men. Currently, there are five women who are accusing the former Alabama supreme court justice of sexual improprieties.

The Race for Autonomous Vehicles

EE News

French developer Navya in Lyon has launched a dedicated electric taxi that is fully autonomous without a steering wheel or place for a driver.

The AUTONOM CAB carries up to six passengers at a maxmum speed of 55mph using 22 or 33kWh lithium phospor battery packs (LiFePO 4) with up to 10 hours of operation.

To achieve the Level 5 autonomous operation it uses ten Lidar sensors (three giving 360 degree visibility and the rest with 145 degree visibility), six cameras, four radars, two GNSS satellite antennaes and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). These sensors provide at least a triple redundancy across all functions, says the company. It also uses high precision GPS RTK positioning and high resolution maps for navigation.

Economic Jihad

Tablet

In a not-so-earth-shattering move, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has appointed a Palestinian-American, Joyce Ajlouny, as its new Secretary General. Ajlouny is a native of Ramallah and formerly the head of the Quaker school there, a “passionate” advocate for Palestinians and for “evenhandedness.”

Ajlouny may be the perfect candidate to run the AFSC, the leading American Quaker organization, which over the years has cultivated its image as peaceful and supremely benign. Few suspect, much less know, that one of their central missions these days is promoting the BDS movement that opposes Israel’s existence.

How did a century-old religiously based pacifist organization transform itself into one of the leading engines for the Palestinian cause? Part of the answer lies in the AFSC’s evolution, which has gone from trying to save Jews to vilifying them. Its Quaker theology has similarly gone from emphasis on the “Inner Light” that guides individual conscience to something like old-fashioned Christian supersessionism, where Jews deserve to be hated. The result is that the organization is now effectively captive to progressive Israel-hatred. Read more ..

Campus Hate

Weekly Standard

A witness called before the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on campus anti-Semitism is drawing fire from pro-Israel groups for defending comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany and downplaying the targeting of Jewish students.

Barry Trachtenberg, director of the Jewish Studies program at Wake Forest University, submitted testimony to the committee saying “there is nothing necessarily wrong in comparing the actions of Israel to those of Nazi Germany” and arguing against legislation that directs the Department of Education to consider the State Department's definition of anti-Semitism during discrimination probes.

Trachtenberg’s comments triggered outrage from a top official at an anti-Semitism watchdog who also testified Tuesday. Read more ..

Hollywood on Edge

LA Times

He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler. He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes.

His opening line had a few variations. One went: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?”

His opening line had a few variations. One went: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?”

During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He’d tell them, they said, that he couldn’t properly function unless he “jerked off” several times a day. And then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over. Read more ..

Campus Hate

Algemeiner

A delegation of Israeli Arabs who are fighting the delegitimization of the Jewish state on college campuses remain committed to sharing their message in the United States, despite facing threats back home and unexpected obstacles from allies abroad.

The team — made up of Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bedouin and Palestinian volunteers — came on behalf of the advocacy group Reservists on Duty, and braved intense pressure to defend Israel publicly, RoD chief Amit Deri told The Algemeiner.

Dema Taya, a 25-year-old Israeli-Arab Muslim, said she received a barrage of abusive comments after her views on her country and plans to join the RoD tour were shared on Arab media.

“I received a lot of messages on Facebook threatening me and attacking me,” Taya recounted in an interview with The Algemeiner. “It was emotionally very difficult for me, because they wrote very harsh comments and insulted me personally, just because I am saying the truth … it was really painful.”

Taya added that some Arab outlets falsely reported that the RoD trip — organized in coordination with Students Supporting Israel — was actually planned by the Israeli government.

“Arab media just brainwashes the minds of young people,” she said. “There are more minorities, Muslim women and men, who think like me but they are afraid to talk because not everyone can stand in front of these attacks.”

She pointed to support she received from other Israeli Arabs, including one Muslim woman, who told her in a private message, “I am with you, I think like you, but I will not write this in the comments because they will attack me.” Read more ..

The War Against Anti-Semitism

Jerusalem Post

The Austrian National Union of Students passed on Friday a motion against BDS, saying that the boycott movement targeting Israel is antisemitic, and that its demands recall the Nazis’ economic war against Jewish businesses.It is believed to be the first time an Austrian national student union has passed such a resolution.

The Austrian Jewish students group announced on its Facebook page: “We are very happy to announce that the Austrian Students Union is the first national student union to officially pass a resolution denouncing BDS and also passing a version of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – IHRA definition of antisemitism. The resolution states BDS to be an antisemitic campaign and calls not to give it any space or supporting funds.

“This has been a big step in the fight against antisemitism, and we are very happy that after our lobbying effort almost all factions have supported the motion. Read more ..

After the Vote

Spero

A native of Puerto Rico, Pedro A. Cortes, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, abruptly resigned on Wednesday, just three weeks after his office came under fire for allowing thousands of ineligible immigrants across the state to vote. The announcement of his departure came in a “personnel update” from Gov. Tom Wolf (D) that did not specify the reasons for the resignation. Cortes also served as secretary of state from 2003 to 2010 under Gov. Ed Rendell (D).

A spokesman for the governor, J.J. Abbott, told the media that he had no explanation for the resignation. Cortes served as the state’s top election official.

Last week State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R), who chairs the House State Government Committee, joined 15 of his colleagues in a letter “to express our dire concerns” about the disclosure last month that legal resident noncitizens in Pennsylvania had been allowed to register as voters when applying for or renewing drivers’ licenses at PennDot service centers. Read more ..

Oil Addiction

Cox

France’s capital city, the world’s most visited city, according to Reuters, plans to ban all petrol and diesel-fueled vehicles by 2030, officials announced Thursday. Paris will encourage commuters who don’t walk, bike or use public transportation to switch to electric cars.

The move is, in part, a pollution-reducing effort.

“This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases,” Christophe Najdovski, a transportation policy official for the city of Paris, told France Info radio. “Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers ... So we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030.”

According to the CBC, city officials said it was introducing a “feasible and realistic” goal of phasing out of gas vehicles instead of calling the move a “ban” on such cars. Read more ..

Historians on Edge

HuffPo

The head of a prestigious graduate college associated with the University of Toronto is apologizing for racist statements made by a faculty member toward a black student.

Hugh Segal is also promising changes at Massey College.

Segal issued a statement saying that professor Michael Marrus made "hurtful and completely inappropriate" remarks toward the student over lunch this past Tuesday.

The statement he issued containing the apology did not provide details of the incident, but a letter of complaint signed by dozens of students and faculty members outlines allegations that Segal appeared to corroborate. The letter of complaint alleges that while the student was in front of Segal, whose official title is "Master" of the college, Marrus overtly invoked images of slavery.

Marrus allegedly said "You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?"

The letter expressed "profound outrage" at the incident and demanded that Segal issue an apology, fire Marrus and change his own title from Master. Read more ..